Australian Institute of Marine Science Amendment Bill 2004

Bills Digest No. 159 2003-04

WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as
introduced and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest
does not have any official legal status. Other sources should be
consulted to determine the subsequent official status of the
Bill.

Passage History

The purpose of this Bill is to add a member nominated by James
Cook University (JCU) to the Australian Institute of Marine Science
(AIMS) Council and to change the name for the head of AIMS from
Director to Chief Executive Officer .

Background

The proposed extra AIMS Council member is an expression of
Government policy encouraging increased collaboration between
Commonwealth science agencies and universities. While there are
already many examples of collaboration at the research level,
policies are being designed to encourage even more synergy, in
management as well as at laboratory level. In the case of AIMS, the
Bill applies the principle of collaboration at the highest level in
an important research agency. Especially before the advent of
Cooperative Research Centres, there was insufficient Australian
collaboration between research agencies and university researchers,
for example, in contrast to the collaboration between Germany s
Fraunhofer Institutes and German universities.

Coincidentally, AIMS and JCU have recently negotiated a separate
cooperative agreement, an initiative known as the AIMS@JCU Joint
Venture. Representation of JCU on AIMS Council will help to
facilitate the Joint Venture, although the two moves are not
formally linked.

The second measure in the Bill brings AIMS into line with the
common usage designation Chief Executive Officer as used, for
example, in CSIRO, the Australian Research Council and the National
Health and Medical Research Council. This will assist in developing
professional relationships between AIMS and other
bodies.(1)

Rod Panter and Jennifer Nicholson
17 June 2004
Bills Digest Service
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